Russia, China Hold Large-Scale War Games

Pentagon intelligence agencies are closely watching Russian and
Chinese war games now taking place in Europe and Asia involving tens of
thousands of troops.Meanwhile, NATO military forces are set to conduct large-scale
maneuvers in November that will be designed to counter growing concerns
of a westward Russian military encroachment, according to U.S.
officials.“The Russians are moving forces closer to Europe, and that is troubling,” said a military official.Russia’s Zapad-13 military exercises in Belarus are scheduled to end
Thursday. They included practice attacks on a western state, said one
official familiar with reports of the maneuvers.Some 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops took part with over 60 aircraft and helicopters and up to 250 vehicles.The forces practiced “rapid reaction” drills.Russian officials recently denied Polish press reports that the
Zapad-13 would include a notional nuclear attack on Warsaw. However,
Russian officials have said the war games will involve practicing
precision air and missile strikes.On the Russian air base, Russian air force chief Lt. Gen. Vladimir
Bondarev announced in June that the air base for Su-27 jets in Belarus
would be opened near the city of Lida, near the border with Poland and
Lithuania.Bondarev said the warplanes would bolster a 1997 defense agreement between the two countries in response to NATO expansion.It will be Russia’s first military base in Europe since the collapse
of the Soviet Union, and along with it the Warsaw Pact, in 1991. Moscow
currently has military bases in Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has moved away from democracy
and shifted the former Soviet republic away from Europe and toward
Russia, restoring many symbols from Soviet Belarus.In response to Polish press reports on the simulated nuclear strike
on Poland’s capital, state-run Interfax news agency in April denied the
reports. “Claims that West 2013 will allegedly practice a preventive
nuclear strike on Warsaw are nothing but imagination of Polish
journalists,” a high-ranking officer was quoted as saying.Belarusian Deputy Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Pyotr Tsikhanowski said
in June, “The theme of the exercise is the training and the engagement
of troops in order to ensure the military security of the Union State
[of Belarus and Russia].” New weapons and military equipment will be
tested during the exercises, he added.War game scenarios include an “escalation of relations with countries
based on interethnic, interreligious differences, and territorial
claims,” he said.“At the same time, the conflicting states are hypothetically located
within the actual borders of Belarus and the three western and
northwestern regions of Russia,” Tsikhanowski said.U.S. military officials said the war games are part of a larger
Russian effort to use military power to bolster its position in the
former Soviet republics with a larger military presence.Russia also has a ballistic missile warning radar at Baranovichi,
Belarus, and a Navy communications facility used to communicate with
Russian submarines. Moscow also supplied Belarus with advanced S-300
missile defenses and Tor-M2 surface-to-air missiles.The exercises drew criticism from Eastern European NATO governments.“Russia has officially stated that these are anti-terrorism
exercises,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Juozas Olekas told AFP. “But the
number of participants and amount of military equipment indicates that
that this is not their agenda.”Senior Estonian military official Lt. Col. Eero Rebo said: “The
Kremlin claims that the exercise is about fighting terrorism, but based
on the information we have on Zapad 2013, the exercise has an anti-West
agenda.”“If you look at the Baltic sea region, the strategic balance has been
changing quite drastically in the last decade, and not in our favor,”
Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said Friday.“We are concerned because we see such large-scale exercises in
context,” he added. NATO approved special defense plans for Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia, which have a combined population of just over six
million, in 2010.NATO will hold an Eastern European exercise in November called
Steadfast Jazz in the Baltic region and Poland with around 6,000 NATO
troops.The alliance claims the exercises from Nov. 2 to Nov. 9 are not aimed at Russia.“For the past 10 to 12 years we have become incredibly proficient at
the counter-insurgency mission that we have been fighting in
Afghanistan,” NATO’s military commander, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip
Breedlove, told reporters in Brussels Sept. 18.To defend an alliance state, “we have to be prepared for the more
high end of military operations,” he said, according to Reuters.The exercise scenario will involve NATO forces ousting a foreign
invader that Breedlove denied was a hypothetical counterstrike to a
Russian invasion.Meanwhile in China, Chinese military forces are engaged in large-scale exercises involving some 40,000 troops.The People’s Liberation Army announced its “Mission Action 2013” began Tuesday.Troops from the Nanjing and Guangzhou military regions and air forces were set to take part.The PLA troops will conduct maneuvers over large areas using military
ground vehicles, trains, ships, and aircraft to test forces for “real
war” conditions.The exercises will include coordination between military and civilian
assets, including civilian jets and trains to transport forces,
according to state-run Chinese press reports.Chinese aircraft taking part in the war games include jet fighters, bombers, and other aircraft.The exercise also will seek to boost Chinese combined arms warfare
capabilities that integrate air, naval, and ground forces for
long-distance fighting, joint air defense, and joint warfighting on
unfamiliar terrain.